Drawn in Dragon's Blood
by Batsutousai
Summary: It was just a travel itinerary to his brother, but, for the Colourway Alchemist, that list of battlefields was the last piece in a puzzle he hadn't even realised was there to be solved. [Original Character-centric]


**Title:** _Drawn in Dragon's Blood_  
 **Fandom:** _Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood_ /manga  
 **Author:** Batsutousai  
 **Rating:** Teen  
 **Pairings:** Claire Norman/Max "Colourway" Norman (OC/OC)  
 **Warnings:** Original character focus  
 **Summary:** It was just a travel itinerary to his brother, but, for the Colourway Alchemist, that list of battlefields was the last piece in a puzzle he hadn't even realised was there to be solved.

 **Disclaim Her:** This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by Arakawa Hiromu and various publishers. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.  
Max Magnus Norman, the Colourway Alchemist, and his family all belong to me.

 **A/N:** N7 Jam (FFN) has been asking me all the questions about Colourway, and it just made me _really_ want to write a fic for him. Because I adore him that much. (Pretty sure I'm not alone, there. :P )

Timeline/tie-in-wise, this story takes place a bit before the FMA canon, so it technically fits with any of my stories where he shows up, but it's not intended to be specific to any one fic (even though it might seem like this is specific to _Reverti_ , this has been a part of his backstory since before I started working on that fic).

For people who might be confused (since I usually just refer to Colourway by his State Alchemist title), Colourway's name is Max, and that's how he thinks of himself. ;P

You can also read this at Archive of Our Own, tumblr, or LiveJournal.

-0-

The first thing Max noticed about Henry, when he opened the door, was that his little brother had finally given up on pretending he wasn't going bald. And, by the resigned expression on Henry's face, he'd come expecting a comment.

Max would _never_ think to disappoint him.

So he reached out and rubbed the bald patch, grinning widely and asking, "Can you blind people with that?"

"Funny, Max," Henry bit out, tone cross, but not so much so that Claire would be mad. (Yet.) "Claire invited me."

Max made a point of blinking his eyes as slowly as possible as he rubbed the top of Henry's head some more. "This is very distracting."

" _Max_ ," Henry hissed, glaring.

Almost as though she knew exactly what was going on – Max wouldn't put it past her; he'd married one sharp woman – Claire called from the kitchen, "Darling, let Henry in and come help me with this."

Max let out a loud sigh and stepped back to let his brother in. Henry's smile said he was about to make a comment on how Max was whipped or something, so Max turned and started toward the kitchen, leaving it for his brother to close the door, while he called ahead, "Henry's afraid all the ladies'll be scared away by his sparkle-head!"

Henry let out an irritated snarl behind him and the door slammed closed.

Claire's expression, when Max reached the kitchen, was not impressed, and he tried not to shuffle or hunch too obviously as he walked over to accept the pan she was holding out. " _Behave_ ," she whispered.

Max put on his best, most exaggerated pout, and did his best to hold it when her disapproval melted into that sort of helplessly amused smile that she usually wore while they were in public.

He heard his brother's clumping footsteps coming toward them and made a strategic retreat to the dining room with the pan, giving Claire and Henry a chance to greet each other in peace.

"Hello, Henry. It's been _ages_ ," Claire said almost as soon as Max had cleared the kitchen doorway.

"Has it?" Henry replied, sounding almost tired for a moment, and Max allowed himself a small, worried frown, since no one was around to see it.

"Almost seven months."

Henry let out a sort of helpless laugh. "I'll take your word for it; hard to keep track away from civilization."

"So you always say," Claire agreed, sounding as worried as Max felt; they were both afraid that, one of these days, Henry just wouldn't be able to make it home from whatever foreign country or ancient battlefield or whatever he'd gone visiting that time. Not that Max would ever admit as much to his brother; Henry would think he'd gone properly insane if he started acting like he cared after so long.

(He didn't regret it. He _couldn't_.)

Max set the pan on the table and hurried back into the kitchen, deciding they'd probably got the hug and the necessary greetings out of the way. "Look, see?" he called as he stepped up next to Henry and dropped a hand down on the top of his head. " _Shiny_."

Henry shot him a quick glare, but then Claire offered, "I think it looks quite dignified. Quite suits you, Henry."

"You think?" Henry asked, brushing Max's hand off his head.

"I do," Claire returned in that voice that made her sound like she meant something from the bottom of her heart, the one that even Max couldn't quite determine the honesty of most times. (Like this time; he didn't _think_ she was lying, but there was no way she could think baldness made Henry look _dignified_.)

"Dignified, smignified," he interrupted, before Henry's smile could get any bigger. "No one likes the stuffy old professor look any more, Hen-Hen. It's out. Retired. Old history."

"Better dignified than bloody _insane_ ," Henry shot back, tugging on one of the bright green locks of Max's hair. "What even _is_ this, Max?"

"A sunset!"

"A sun–" Henry squeezed his eyes shut and turned back toward Claire, who was grinning into the cooker; Max could see her reflection in the chrome edging. "I'm honestly sorry I ever introduced him to you, Claire."

Claire let out that cough she always used to get her expression under control, then stood and offered Henry a faint smile. "Don't be."

"You're a saint," Henry insisted, before turning to Max, who was sticking out his tongue. "You're a freak."

"I know you are, but what am I?!" Max sing-songed back, before flashing his widest smile and grabbing the basket of rolls off the worktop to carry it out to the living room.

"How can I help?" Henry asked after he'd left the kitchen.

Max rolled his eyes as his wife and brother started their usual debate about how much help guests were allowed to provide, and set the basket on the table, before stepping back and tugging forward a purple lock of his hair. He took a moment to rub at the dried dioxazine pigment that served as both colourant and alchemic material, should such prove necessary, debating the pros and cons of completely changing the compounds in his hair to mess with Henry a bit more.

Maybe switch from green, purple, and pink, to actual sunset colours? Orange, red, and yellow. He didn't have anything for the proper shade of yellow on him right that moment – too lemon-yellow, good for a tie, not so much for sunset hair – but he might have time to run over to his office to switch it around.

"You're _certain_ that's all I can help with?" Henry said, his voice breaking through Max's thoughts; he'd debated too long.

Nothing for it; he switched the purple for the lemon yellow, since his hands were properly positioned, and the array sewn into part of his tie hidden under his shirt collar was just _begging_ to be used.

Henry and Claire walked out with the last of the dishes and they all settled in around the table, each serving themselves.

And then Henry glanced at Max, looked down at his food for a moment, then looked back up to frown at Max properly, looking between his now-purple tie and his hair. " _Claire_."

Claire glanced over at Max, gave him a considering look, then offered, "Switching with the green would have worked better."

Max blinked, confused for a moment, before it occurred to him that, yes, lemon yellow, purple, and pink could serve as slightly off sunset colours; he was clearly off his game if she'd had to point that out. Damn.

"Please don't encourage him," Henry complained.

Claire reached over and very firmly pressed Max's fork into his hand – a silent reminder not to play with potentially toxic chemical compounds around food, and that he'd promised a long time ago that he wouldn't leave the table once they'd started eating until his plate was cleaned, unless it was an actual emergency – while asking Henry, "So, where have you been since the last time you were in Central? You were heading down to Aerugo, I think?"

Henry nodded and wiggled his fork a bit. "Storm along the coast uncovered some ruins. They were amazing, really glad I heard about it before the tourists started trampling all over everything of any importance."

Max settled in to eat and listen to his brother's recent travels, tossing out unnecessary commentary or poorly-timed jokes whenever Henry started getting lost in the technicalities, or muttering to himself. (And people thought _he_ was the crazy one.)

Max took his chance, while they were switching the dinner dishes for the cake one of Claire's student assistants at the gallery had brought in the day before, to switch the green in his hair with the purple in his tie, and the vaguely disgusted expression Henry tossed him was absolutely worth it.

"Are you actually incapable of acting like your age?" Henry muttered.

"Rather pretty splashes of colour all day, than rolling around in mud," Max replied with his brightest smile. And then he stopped and considered that for a moment while Henry scoffed. "Wait. Mud."

" _No_ ," Claire interrupted.

"But the _chemical properties_ ," Max insisted. Because he could _totally_ sell adding a mud pit somewhere on the lab grounds and then 'accidentally' pushing a couple researchers into it. Right?

"I don't want to know," Henry muttered.

No, no, maybe not. Sour-faced Grand was a bit slow most days, but even _he_ wouldn't be so dull as to not see through that request. Unless Max could come up with some sort of array or possible research tract that he could float, even in mud.

"Floating," he said aloud, then snickered, mostly because he'd learnt a long time ago that saying aloud random, private amusements, without explaining them, tended to disturb people. Or confuse them. Or, like Henry, make him look a bit like he'd smelt something he wasn't completely certain he liked, and quickly change the subject.

"At any rate, seeing that battlefield in Aerugo, made me remember that one just north-west of South City. I'd been there before, certainly, but it's been a while, and I wanted to compare, a bit, between how Amestris handles former battlefields and how Aerugo does it."

Max hummed a bit and patted at his pockets, wondering if he had a biro or pencil or something on his person.

Claire very pointedly picked up his fork and wiggled it in front of his face, even as she asked Henry about his battlefield comparisons.

Max sighed and took the fork, turning his attention to his cake.

Cake. Flat top. The frosting was still soft. And he had a fork.

He started sketching an array in the top of his cake, something that could maybe be used with mud.

He'd managed about half of an array that _might work_ – might also blow up in his face, which was potentially messy; maybe he could get one of the idiot researchers to try it for him? – when Henry said, loudly, " _Max_. You're worse than _Cal_."

Max barely kept from tensing at the mention of his elder brother and flashed a sharp smile at Henry. "Callum only _wishes_ he had the skills to draw arrays in cake," he said, tried to make the words bright and cheerful, but they came out far too flat. Too obvious.

Damn.

Henry swallowed, looking away. "Yeah, well, Mum always–" He coughed and shook his head, still wouldn't look at Max. "Just, remember, not playing with your food."

"I'm crazy, not a child," Max pointed out in his most reasonable voice.

Henry shot him a suspicious look, so Max flashed him a wide, crazy smile, and his brother grimaced slightly and rolled his eyes, the previous slip clearly forgotten. "Tell me he's doing some sort of crazy magic-science to keep all his hair," he said to Claire.

Claire sighed. "It really doesn't look that bad, I promise."

Henry put on a smile that looked distinctly strained. "I guess," he agreed.

Claire reached over her fork without looking, toward Max's cake, even as she asked about whatever weird weapon thing Henry had found at the South City battlefield.

Max quickly rescued his cake, took a moment to trap the array in his mind, then ate his slice.

Claire tried to get Henry to stay for a couple more hours, but he quickly waved that off. "No, no, that's fine. I need to finish unpacking, and maybe do some dusting and reorganising before I head back out again end of the week."

"So soon?" Claire asked, saving Max from having to break character and ask. "But you just got back! Shouldn't you take a couple weeks?"

"I couldn't," Henry insisted, shaking his head. "I was thinking, while I was down in South City, that it could be interesting to compare battlefields, since Amestris has so many. I mean, they're a bit spread out, but that's not a big deal. Maybe that mess down in Fotset will have calmed down by the time I make a proper circuit. I mean, it doesn't seem nearly as big as Ishval was, but I do kind of want to compare the two sites, actually, now I think of it. Given how close, date-wise, they've fallen, and the differences between Ishvalan and Aerugonian weaponry, not to mention the tactics and the lay of the land..."

" _BOOM_!" Max shouted, and Henry jumped; tangent successfully derailed.

Claire sighed and patted Henry's shoulder. "Well, it sounds like you have quite the project ahead of you. As often as Amestris is going to war with Creta and Aerugo..."

Henry shrugged. "Well, the little skirmishes, sure, we've had a lot of those, along the border, but those usually get cleaned up pretty well. No, I'm thinking about the big, messy battlefields, the ones that have markers or something, that my peers always write about as 'decisive' battles. Those are the ones I'll have to find for this."

"So..."

"There's only five or six. I'm sure I'll be back in a few months and you can have me over again."

"And we can compare your shiny head!" Max agreed cheerfully.

Claire coughed and caught Henry around the shoulders to turn him toward the front door. "Sounds like a plan. Call ahead again, if you think of it? You know I'm always happy to help you find an excuse to put off shopping your first day back."

"I'll do that," Henry agreed, before calling, "Max!"

"Alas," Max said loudly, "to watch him leave; so bittersweet. Yet better to watch his be–"

" _Goodbye_ , Henry," Claire interrupted, saving all of them from the sort of potentially awkward moment that Max had been aiming for. Shame. "Safe travels."

"Goodbye, Claire. And good luck with him."

She laughed, the door opened, and then closed.

Max looked up from the piece of paper and pen he'd discovered in the seat pockets of his trousers, sensing eyes on him. "Hi?" he offered to Claire's stare.

"Baldness," Claire said, in that tone that she always used when she was serious about something.

Max slumped and ducked his head. "But it's _funny_. He looks just like–"

" _Max_."

Max sighed, gave himself a moment to mourn the loss of all the jokes he could have been saving up for Henry's next visit, then nodded. "I know."

"Thank you, darling," Claire murmured, coming over to stand next to him. Max wrapped an arm around her as she looked down at his array sketch. "Should I ask?"

"Mud."

She raised an eyebrow at him.

"Like, to explode mud in the user's face, but it's supposed to look like it could do something useful, so–"

"No, don't tell me. I want to be able to claim I didn't know anything when this inevitably goes wrong."

Max turned and snickered into her hair. " _Saint_ ," he offered.

She laughed and pinched his side. "Come on, you crazy man. Help me clean up the kitchen so we can go to bed."

"And then I can show you all the ways you drive me crazy?"

"Please don't ever say that in front of your brother."

"It's a good line!"

"It's a terrible line."

"You used to like my lines!"

"I used to be younger, too."

"You don't look to have aged a _day_. Unlike Henry."

Claire just turned and gave him a _look_.

Max cleared his throat and pointed out, "He's not here?"

"Wash the dishes."

"Yes, dear."

"And if you start dyeing the washing water again, you're sleeping on the porch tonight."

"That was an _accident_."

Claire just snorted.

She knew him far too well.

-0-

After yet another _wholly unnecessary_ visit from Hermes Maximus, feeling far too irritated to work on the mud array – shame – and not quite secure enough in its positioning to start painting it, Max unburied the map of Amestris and her surroundings that Henry had got him for one birthday or another. It had been intended as a gag gift, a sort of 'maybe you'll have an easier time of following my travels with a visual aid' sort of thing, which Max had failed at using for approximately two visits, then brought in to work on a whim to keep track of Henry's travels for real. (It had the added benefit of confusing the researchers, since none of them actually knew he had a brother, let alone that he was one of the most widely travelled historians on Amestris University's payroll.)

He tried humming a tune as he hunted down tacks to put the map back up on the wall – Henry hadn't given him sufficient directions for the Aerugonian ruins, so Max had just taken the map down for a while – but the tune felt flat, so he took to muttering disparaging remarks about Hermes' fashion sense – ridiculously _boring_ , even Henry's stuffy professor do was less yawn-worthy.

With the map up, Max tilted his head and considered it, going back over everything his brother had said over desert about his future travel plans.

He'd done South City on his way back north, and he wanted to do Ishval and then Fotset, one after the other, assuming the military would let him into Ishval – probably would, if Henry waved around his university credentials – and assuming the fighting was done in Fotset.

Max grimaced, remembering how close, timeline wise, the two wars had been. Were, still, with Fotset still happening. But Henry thought it was winding down? (He'd know better than Max, honestly; history had always been Henry's forte, and tracing patterns in events was a big part of that, though not one he was in the habit of applying to current events.)

Where else, then? Henry had said something about a circuit, and there only being five or six?

Max sighed and scratched his head with one of his tacks, mourning all the times he ignored his brother's prattling on about historical events that had changed the tide of history, or whatever.

Well, Riviere, that one was easy, everyone knew Riviere. And Grandfather had always used to complain, when they were boys, about that soap-whatever mess out at Fisk.

That's four, so, there had to be at least one more. Two, if Henry hadn't been counting Fotset.

Max snorted to himself, because Henry had _never_ been good at maths, so what made him think his brother had pulled the correct number off the top of his head? Maybe he really _was_ starting to go crazy, mixing Henry up with Cal and his alchemy–

Max's mind screeched to a halt, caught on the points he'd already made with tacks. It was almost a square, but it didn't quite fit into the circle that Amestris' borders formed. Add in South City and you've got a weird little lump at the bottom. Except, hadn't Henry said the battle had been north and west of South City? Maybe far enough up to make a straight line along the bottom?

 _Wellesley_ , he recalled, pressing a tack in over that city. His grandfather had commented on that conflict, too, though less often, because it'd been on the other side of the country from them. But it had still messed up train schedules, and since their family had made their money in transporting goods, Grandfather had always cared about those sorts of things.

Without his conscious input, his hand moved across the map and pushed a tack in at the last point on the pentagon.

A pentagon in a circle: Amestris was a giant array?

But, no, that wasn't all, because if this was some sort of pattern, like it was beginning to look like, Ishval and Fotset didn't fit in with the pentagon. Hell, they weren't even on the circle connecting the points, were just a little outside it, like an outer circle, or something.

Max snorted and shook his head, turning away from the map. Nonsense. He was seeing patterns that weren't there, that's all. Chance.

'Everything,' his mother-in-law had always said, 'happens for a reason.'

"Not everything," Max whispered to her ghost as he dropped his handful of tacks on top of the pile of papers he'd found them buried under, then went back to his work.

-0-

The map haunted him for the rest of the day, and he was still trying not to think about it over dinner.

"Darling," Claire called, and he looked up from where he'd been rearranging his food into basic arrays, to find her watching him with those too-knowing eyes that she'd mastered after their daughter's death. "What happened?"

Max caught himself flashing her one of his widest, craziest smiles, couldn't quite bite it back before–

"Max Magnus!" Claire snapped, because he'd sworn never to hide behind his screen of madness with her.

He winced and looked away, slumping. "I'm sorry. It was...that was a reflex. I didn't mean to–"

She sighed and reached a hand across the table toward him, and Max reached out to take it, folding their fingers together and squeezing a little too tight, but she didn't flinch, just quietly asked, "What happened?"

He swallowed, took a moment to organise his thoughts, push back the need to _not think about it_ , about what it could mean if it wasn't just coincidence. "I was...tracking – marking – Henry's battlefields, the ones he wants to go visit this time, and the South City one, and I saw... There was...a pattern. An array."

Claire squeezed his fingers and he looked up at her, found her expression twisted with uncertainty and concern. "An array?" she repeated, gentle. Coaxing. The same tone she used when he got stuck on an array or one of his paintings for the gallery, and he came to her because he was tired of complaining to the wall. (If only the wall would _reply back_.)

"Amestris is a circle," he offered, frowning down at his eviscerated meal and defaulting to the 'start with the basics' way he always walked through problems with Claire; she was neither an artist nor an alchemist, but she'd gone to school for the former, and had picked up plenty of useless information about the latter from putting up with him for so many years. "Except for that bowl up north, and the usual issues with borders under contest, it's a perfect circle."

"An alchemists' nation," Claire offered quietly, repeating something Max's alchemy teacher had liked to say.

Max nodded and tried to ignore the chill that went down his spine. "Yes. And, so, there's Riviere, and South City, Henry said, and my grandfather always used to talk about, when I was a kid, he'd go on about some soap incident up in Fisk, and something down in Wellesley that threw off the train schedules for a while. And if you connect those four, and one more point in the middle of the east, you've got a pentagon."

"In a circle," Claire murmured, her mouth turned with an uncertain frown. "That's a fairly basic array, though, isn't it?"

"No, _no_ , absolutely not," Max insisted. "Triangles are basic, and squares, but not– No. The more points, the more power, the bigger the transmutation. Six points, in two triangles, that's not uncommon, because it's still triangles, the energy flow is still pretty even, but not pentagons. What are pentagons even for? I don't know any arrays. We don't _use_ pentagons."

"Okay," Claire interrupted, squeezing his fingers again. "Deep breath."

Max took his deep breath, pulled away from that tangent, even if a part of him still wanted to try and figure out what pentagons would be used for. No alchemy he knew anything of.

"Could you be missing a point?" Claire offered after he'd taken another breath.

Max took a moment to think back over what he remembered of that map, then shook his head. "No. It's either coincidence and I'm seeing things, or it's a pentagon."

Claire clearly took a moment to consider that, her thumb rubbing lightly against his, like she was doing her best to soothe one of the two of them. (Or both of them.) "You're not crazy," she finally settled on.

Max couldn't keep from grimacing, because that hadn't been what he'd said, but she knew he'd half meant it that way anyway. "There are a number of people who would argue with you about that."

Claire shook her head. "So, important battlefields are creating a pentagon around Amestris, possibly acting as some sort of advanced array."

Max swallowed against the lump growing in his throat and offered, "And Ishval and Fotset. They're closer to the border, but they're the same pattern, like Henry said, with big battlefields."

Massive loss of life. Blood-soaked ground.

An advanced array with points drawn in blood. He couldn't begin to guess what it was for, but he knew he didn't want to be inside of it when it activated. And, if they started making plans now...

"I think I'm going to pick up Aerugonian."

Claire was quiet for a long moment, staring down at their joined hands, before she said, "You need to write Cal."

Max scowled and pulled his hand away from her, wasn't really surprised that she let him go without a complaint. " _Why_? He won't open it."

"Write him anyway," Claire returned, shooting him a hard look. "You'll hate yourself if you don't."

That was true, and he hated it. Hated that he couldn't stop caring for his brother the same way Callum seemed to have stopped caring about him.

"Fine," he muttered, picking his fork back up to make another go at his dinner. "But I reserve the right to say 'I told you so' when it comes back."

"I'll survive," Claire promised as she stood. She didn't move for a moment, and Max looked up to find her staring off into the distance, in the general direction of an empty space of wall. As he opened his mouth to ask her what was wrong, she shook herself, then offered him that same easy smile that he'd fallen so utterly in love with when Henry first introduced them. "I imagine it'll be easier to get some of your paints in Aerugo, with all the taxation on imports."

"I'll probably be able to sell more paintings, too," Max pointed out, happy to take the digression and go with it.

Claire laughed and shook her head. "You can start over."

He knew what she meant: He could stop pretending to be crazy because it was what people had come to expect from him. But, too, it made it easier; people couldn't leave him if he didn't let them get too close to begin with.

"Try," Claire asked, sounding every bit as old and broken as Max too often felt. "For me, just give it a try."

Max forced a smile, just enough that she wouldn't call him out on a lie when he said, "I'll try."

She smiled back, a little too tired. "I'll see about hunting down some Aerugonian books or a tutor while I'm at lunch tomorrow."

"Don't tell Henry," Max ordered, and her smile eased, sharpened into something a little more alive. " _Claire_. He'll be a _misery_."

"I'll only tell him if you comment on his lack of hair again."

"I already promised to stop!"

"Of course you did, darling," Claire agreed as she picked up her dishes, then escaped into the kitchen before Max could come up with a good response to that.

He really didn't know what he'd do without her.

-0-

Somehow, when he reached for a colour the next afternoon in the lab, he found himself picking up his container of dragon's blood; terrible, _brilliant_ red. Not a colour he'd ever used in the lab, because there were always better shades of red or orange or pink. He'd never had a need for this one.

It was written in the name: Blood.

He looked back up at his blank canvas, waiting for his mud exploding array, and knew he needed to paint that other array first. It wasn't complete, but he could see the connections in his mind's eye. Form without understanding.

He shouldn't. He knew better than to paint arrays he didn't understand. But he knew, sometimes, he had no choice but to paint with the colour in his hand, and he _couldn't_ have that mud array in this shade.

He glanced toward the line of paintings resting against one wall of his lab, looking like so much abandoned rubbish because he wasn't allowed to take them out, so they just collected. Took up space. No one saw any use in them, but Max would never let them be thrown away, knew exactly how many there were, so Hermes and his nasty little band couldn't try sneaking them away to deface. (They hadn't dared, not yet, but Max was long familiar with the cruelties jealousy could birth, and he didn't trust them for a moment.)

Maybe, one day, he'd find an alchemy researcher or another State Alchemist who saw the same way he did. Maybe, one day, he'd show that person what was drawn in blood, and pass them a couple books on Aerugonian.

No, too unlikely.

 _But, what if–?_

He started painting.

.


End file.
